The Postilion (The Masqueraders #2) - S.M. LaViolette Page 0,29
given her one of his maddeningly mocking smiles. “I only put myself out because I knew, even then, how useful you’d be to me.”
Months later—after Geoff had methodically decimated any morals Benna might have still retained—she had understood that he hadn’t been speaking in jest.
But as much as she might despise his criminal behavior on occasion, she couldn’t deny that it provided them both with a comfortable living.
Indeed, the profits from their gaming were so prodigious that Benna didn’t understand why Geoff had to keep bilking women by bedding them and charming expensive gewgaws and gifts of money out of them.
Well, that wasn’t true; she knew exactly what Geoff got out of the transactions besides money.
Along with the surge of jealousy in her belly, Benna also felt a not unpleasant tingling in her sex. The sensation had become increasingly familiar, assaulting her whenever she thought about Geoffrey and what he got up to in his bedchamber.
The only way to rid herself of the tingling was to rub between her legs until it went away, an agreeable activity that, unfortunately, always managed to leave her feeling guilty.
Benna shoved down both her drawers and the velvet breeches of the expensive livery that Geoff liked her to wear and stepped out of them.
She’d just laid the breeches over a chair when she heard the door open.
Benna spun around, still clutching her drawers, which she raised to her chest while dropping her other hand to cover her mound.
Geoffrey was leaning against the doorway, wearing the blue Chinese silk robe she’d seen often. “Well, well, well, look what you’ve been hiding under your clothes, Ben.”
His robe hung open, exposing a beautiful body that she couldn’t seem to see often enough.
Benna’s gaze dropped to the most masculine part of him.
She seen him hard before—many times—because it was his habit to strut about naked whenever he pleased.
Like her, Geoff was fair skinned, but his hair was a lovely golden blond rather than Benna’s freakish white, which she dyed, even though Geoff often mocked her for it.
“If you’re going to try and hide the color, you’ll have to do your eyebrows while you’re about it,” he’d said the first day she worked for him. And so she now carefully darkened her brows, too.
He cocked his head at her, making Benna realize that she was still staring at him. “Why do you look so nervous, Ben? You see me thus daily.” Geoff chuckled, the action flexing the tight basketry of muscles that comprised his abdomen. He spread his hands and held his arms out to the sides, as if presenting his person to her like an offering “I can only assume that you are discomposed that I am finally seeing you without even a stitch.”
He was right; she was discomposed. Actually, mortified would be a better word.
It was true that she saw him in various stages of undress ever since she’d taken on the task of valeting him.
But Geoff was the first man to see Benna naked. And he was a connoisseur of beautiful women. And Benna—who was as voluptuous as a stork and easily able to masquerade as a man—was far from beautiful.
“Hmmm.” He prowled toward her in the snake-hipped way he had. “Let me look at you, my dear.”
Benna took a step back and immediately bumped into the arm of the chair.
Geoffrey didn’t stop coming toward her until she could see the magnificent blue of his irises. He was shorter than her—perhaps by two inches—but he was well-developed and muscular, the body of a man in his prime.
He pried the cotton drawers from her clenched fingers and tossed them aside, staring up at her, the nostrils of his aquiline nose flaring slightly. “Just how old are you, Ben? I can’t seem to recall.”
“That’s because you never asked me,” she said, her naturally deep voice even deeper.
“I didn’t?” He grinned, the expression turning his angelic features into something devilish.
“No.”
Indeed, Geoff had never asked Benna a single question about her past since the morning she’d woken up to find herself curled up at his feet on the floor of his hired post chaise.
He had merely smiled down at her, told her they were headed to Leeds, mentioned that he was in need of a groom, and then informed her that she would have to swap places with his valet outside on the box at their next change of horses.
“How remiss of me not to have asked your age,” Geoff said in a mocking tone. “You may enlighten me, now.”